1. Personal details (name, surname, rank, age, occupation, marital status):
Sergeant Roman Oczkoś, 44 years old, merchant, married.
2. Date and circumstances of arrest:
I was taken prisoner by the Soviets on 24 September 1939, near Hrubieszów, along with the group of captain Cwiniar.
3. to 6. Name of the camp, prison, or forced labor site; description of the camp, prison etc. (area, buildings, housing conditions, hygiene); the composition of POWs, prisoners, exiles (nationality, category of crimes, intellectual and moral standing, mutual relations etc.); life in the camp, prison etc. (daily routine, working conditions, work quotas, remuneration, food, clothes, social and cultural life etc.):
On 1 October 1939, they brought me to Brody and assigned me to the new barracks. Housing conditions were bearable, food was miserable – only soup with buckwheat, without any fat or salt.
On 16 October, they took me to the prison camp located in the castle of Countess Rzerzycka – we were sleeping on a bare floor, food was miserable.
On 1 January 1940, I was sent to the camp in Busk in Małopolska. We were kept in the stables of Count Badeni – they were dirty and full of bedbugs. As for the food, it was decent when it comes to the quantity; quality – not so much. Work quotas were set high. As for the nationality of the prisoners, there were mainly Poles. The majority of prisoners couldn’t meet the quotas. Instead of getting remuneration, the prisoners had to pay instead.
On 1 October, we were taken to Tudorowo, in the Równe district, in cars. We were accommodated in the farm stables – dirt and bedbugs. We didn’t work there.
On 2 January 1941, we were taken to Równe by car, and on 4 January, to Wołoczyska by train. We lived in barracks. Food was very miserable, and working quotas set so high that no one, from among 400 people, could meet them working fairly. No one got any remuneration for their work.
On 27 April 1941, they brought us to the airport in Teofipol.
In the camps I mentioned above we used to work for 8 to 10 hours a day, and in Teofipol we worked 14 hours a day, with a one-hour break for lunch. As for the housing conditions, in Teofipol, we were accommodated in the sheds of a kolkhoz – it was miserable and dirty there. The food was also miserable. The working quotas set so high it was impossible to meet them. We got no remuneration for our work, which lasted from the 1st of October until the 1st of December.
In all of these camps, there were mostly Polish people. Mutual relations were good. Medical assistance – inadequate.
7. The NKVD’s attitude towards Poles (interrogation methods, torture and other forms of punishment, Communist propaganda, information about Poland, etc.):
The attitude towards Poles was very hostile. They made fun of us for losing to the Germans so quickly – they used to say that there would be no Poland anymore, and if there was, it would be a communist red one. They fed us with communist literature, mocked our government, clergy, and so forth.
8. Medical assistance, hospitals, mortality rate (provide the names of the deceased):
Medical assistance in the camps was limited because of the shortage of medicine. They wanted to release only up three per cent of those prisoners who were sick. On the second day of Easter in 1940, hostage Franciszek Sierakowski was killed while he was being led across the Kadłubice village in district Brody. He tried to escape.
9. Was there any chance to get in contact with one’s country and family?
It was very limited. For the 10 letters I wrote I got only one reply, and that was a good result. From September 1940 I haven’t received any letter from my family.
10. When were you released and how did you manage to join the army?
On 2 July 1941, we set off from Teofipol. We were marching at a bearable pace, later on it was faster and faster – we had to make around 40 kilometers per day. Food was miserable. On 19 July, in Złotonosza, they loaded us into railway wagons, mostly uncovered platforms, and sent us to Starobilsk. We got there on 23 July. Our legs were swollen from the weariness. The food there was miserable. It improved after the announcement of the Polish-Bolshevik agreement. On 24 August, Lieutenant Colonel Wiśniowski arrived in Starobilsk.
3 September was the day of departure. On 9 September 1941, we arrived in Tock [Totskoye]. I joined the Polish Army there. I was assigned to the 6th Infantry Division.